SS Rajamouli's Varanasi To Be Shorter Than RRR?

Hyderabad, February 13 - Director SS Rajamouli's Varanasi is his most ambitious film yet, and everyone got a glimpse of it when the makers released the first-look teaser in November last year. The nearly 4-minute-long promo showcased Rajamouli's massive vision for the global action-adventure.

Ever since the teaser of Mahesh Babu's starrer dropped, social media has been buzzing with speculation about how long the film would be. Seeing the massive scale, fans believe that it can't be fit into one film, and that Rajamouli might have to split it into two parts or keep it as a super lenghty one part epic.

While everyone is speculating multiple parts or a high runtime, Rajamouli seems to have a clear-cut plan to complete the story in one part. What is interesting is that the legendary filmmaker intends to keep the film's theatrical runtime under 3 hours.

“At this point, I’m assuming @VaranasiMovie run time will be less than 3hour” - @ssrajamouli

▶️ https://t.co/SeOUk2PDRn

#MaheshBabu | #Varanasi pic.twitter.com/1tpLtlRQli

— VardhanDHFM (@_VardhanDHFM_) February 13, 2026

During an interview with Collider, the Baabubali director said that as things are proceeding, he believes that the final runtime of Varanasi will be less than 3 hours, which will be less than his last film, RRR. Released in 2022, RRR was huge in scale with the official runtime of 3 hours and 2 minutes, and to have a shorter runtime than the last film for the upcoming film, which is bigger than RRR in terms of everything, is insane.

Of course, a lot of shooting is still pending, and the final runtime might vary, but it is clear that Rajamouli is not looking to expand the film in multiple parts (as of now). When it comes to filmmaking, no one does things better than Rajamouli, but it will be interesting to see how he fits such a massive scale in a film with under 3 hours, while keeping it engaging and the spectacle he is known for.

Also starring Priyanka Chopra and Prithviraj Sukumaran, Varanasi is scheduled to release on April 7, 2027.

Stay tuned...